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Professional MBA Automotive Industry: study trip to the heart of the German automotive industry

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Professional MBA Automotive Industry a field trip to German Automotive and Supply Industry in the Stuttgart area took place from March 21 to 24, 2019 and allowed the participants to get deeper insights into the processes in the automotive industry in Germany.

GoTech Fahrzeugentwicklungs- & KonstruktionsgmbH is a family-owned company and based in Weissach. GoTech is a service provider for automobile manufacturers which develops parts and provides engineering services from conceptual design to serial production. In the presentation the experience of the company as a partner who is responsible for car parts was extensively presented and discussed. During the tour participants could see the different solutions this company offers. They were especially surprised at how a SME can be managed to be successful in the competitive market.

ElringKlinger AG has more than 100 years history and is one of the world leading suppliers in the automotive industry specialized in lightweight solutions, e-mobility, sealing and shielding technology, tooling, and engineering services. The company is developing battery and fuel cell technology as well as electric drive units to be one of frontrunners in the field of e-mobility. The company develops battery and fuel cell technology and electric drives, and demonstrated to our participants the manufacture of gaskets and parts for e-mobility systems.

Robert Bosch GmbH is a leading supplier of technology and services for different industry sectors. It has four business sectors, such as mobility solutions, industrial technology, energy and building technology and consumer goods. With injection technology and power train peripherals for combustion engine and others the business sector “mobility solutions” has the biggest portion of the total group sales. Bosch Factory in Feuerbach is using Industry 4.0 approaches to optimize all processes. After the presentation of the company the tour started from the Human-Machine Collaboration station where participants could see how human workers and a robot work together and get in personal touch with APAS. The tour continued seeing the energy monitoring system as well as the online spindle monitoring system. In the shop floor they saw the production of sensors and other components.

Porscheis one of most traditional sport car manufacturers worldwide which Ferdinand Porsche found in 1931 as an engineering company in Stuttgart. With long tradition it has been producing different sport cars and SUVs. The transition to e-mobility was also visible at Porsche which introduced the pure electric car Taycan. Before the plant tour, Dr. Schöning, Director of Production and Logistics introduced the company and answered the questions. During the plant tour participants could see the engine production and the final assembly of these exclusive cars.

It was an outstanding opportunity to get insights into different German automotive companies from a small engineering company (GoTech), to suppliers (Elringklinger and Bosch) as well as an OEM (Porsche) how they are working with their production systems and preparing for the future challenges in the automotive industry, like e-mobility.

On the weekend lectures took place at the ESB Business Schoolin Reutlingen. On Saturday, Dr. Thomas Meichsner lectured on "Product Development Process" and on Sunday Prof. Vera Hummel taught "Industrial Engineering".

Participants and program team are thankful to the companies for their hospitality and organization of the visits.

Professional MBA Automotive Industry

The unique program Professional MBA Automotive Industry is one of a kind in Europe and celebrates this year its 10th anniversary. Since 2009 more than 140 graduates and participants from 27 different countries joined the Professional MBA Automotive Industry Program (http://automotive.tuwien.ac.at).